


WARNING: LOCAL TEENS ARE STARVED FOR AFFECTION

by lunarlychallenged



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, but that's okay, joss whedon did xander dirty so im taking custody, splits away from canon at around s3e9, this is nonsense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:55:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27375310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunarlychallenged/pseuds/lunarlychallenged
Summary: "It was a normal school day, or as normal as any day had been post-Xander-and-Willow.  It was almost like when Buffy had first moved to Sunnydale: the three of them sitting side by side on the benches outside the school, watching students pass and talking about nothing whatsoever.It should have been a normal school day, anyway, but it wasn’t, because Xander’s leg was pressing against Buffy’s, and she was losing her goddamn mind."Or, Willow and Xander need a little distance if Willow wants to win Oz back, so Buffy steps up to the plate.  Unfortunately, physical intimacy always ends in emotional intimacy.
Relationships: Daniel "Oz" Osbourne/Willow Rosenberg, Xander Harris/Buffy Summers
Comments: 7
Kudos: 43





	WARNING: LOCAL TEENS ARE STARVED FOR AFFECTION

“So he gave me that witch Pez dispenser, right?” Willow was smiling, though she hadn’t reached the point of the story yet. It was a normal school day, or as normal as any day had been post-Xander-and-Willow. It was almost like when Buffy had first moved to Sunnydale: the three of them sitting side by side on the benches outside the school, watching students pass and talking about nothing whatsoever.

It should have been a normal school day, anyway, but it wasn’t, because Xander’s leg was pressing against Buffy’s, and she was losing her goddamn mind.

“And I’d wanted to get him a werewolf one to match, but I couldn’t find one.”

And his shoulder was against hers, giving perfect access to the healthy teenage boy smell. She hadn’t realized that she missed it, back when she and Angel were hot stuff, but she had. She’d missed the musk and deodorant and laundry detergent smell that screamed _I’m alive._

“But you know what I did find? An old horror comic book! One of the stories was about, you guessed it, werewolves.”

Buffy imagined letting her hand drift over, fingers brushing against his. Would he take them? If he did, would that be friendly hand-holding or Something Else?

“So I put it in his locker, ‘cause I wasn’t sure he would take it if I gave it to him in person. But I watched him open the locker, and I swear he almost smiled. That’s gotta be a sign, right?”

Xander was turning to look at Willow, thereby turning his face toward Buffy too. 

She could kiss him, if she wanted.

“Right, Buff?”

Buffy jolted, turning the other way to look at Willow. “Could be. He’s not a big smiler, so he could definitely be defrosting.”

Xander made a jab about Cordelia being the Snow Queen, Willow talked about being guilty, and Buffy felt like she was an actress playing the part of Buffy instead of the real thing.

(There was a mysterious candy bar in her locker.

“It might be an assassination attempt,” she suggested at lunch. “Maybe Cordelia is trying to get rid of all evidence of being friends with us. Or my chem teacher is tired of my bad grades dragging down her success rate.”

“Or maybe my candy got stuck in the vending machine, and I had to buy another one to knock it down,” Xander said dryly. “Maybe I thought you’d like one of them.”

“You say that like it’s the logical first guess,” she huffed. She didn’t eat it until three days later, when she stopped feeling warm inside at the sight of it.)

It wasn't supposed to be a big deal. Buffy knew that, and Xander knew that, so it should have been an easy-peasy platonic physical contact deal.

During a rare bit of Buffy-and-Xander time, he'd gone on a mini-rant about how weird things were with Willow post-infidelity.

"We can't even touch digits anymore. We've been friends for over ten years, and suddenly all of the friend things are off the table because of her sort of boyfriend."

Buffy hummed. They were splitting a Snickers bar in the graveyard, but she wasn't sure if she should be biting the side he was or starting at the opposite end. She chose the opposite end, banishing thoughts of Lady and the Tramp. "It's not really fair to be mad at Willow for trying to preserve relationships with everybody."

"I'm not mad at Willow," he sighed. "I'm mad about Willow. I'm lonely and need to be touched, and my numero uno is off the table. I'm a simple man with simple pleasures, but no simple way to get them."

"There's always me," she said, not really thinking before she spoke.

Xander's eyebrows shot up, and hers furrowed in response. She hadn't thought about it much, but she was lonely too. She'd lost Angel, and everybody had been sort of distracted lately. She could use a digit-touching-buddy.

Buffy smiled, as though she'd been thinking like that all along. "I'm serious. We're best friends. I know we don't have all of the history, but we can start now. I'll be your numero uno, at least until she and Oz are good again."

When Xander grinned back, she was so sure it was a good development. This would be good for everybody. Unfortunately, Buffy wasn't thinking about one important factor.

A very important part of Buffy’s life that everybody seemed to forget about was that Buffy was, by both nature and necessity, a liar. She had to be, but on some level she also chose to be.

She had to be: she had to lie to hide the existence of vampires and demons from people, whether that entailed lying to get out of classes during emergencies or lying to keep Joyce from having a panic attack at every turn.

She chose to be: if she’d wanted to see Angel when that was still on, if she wanted to go to the Bronze from time to time, if she wanted to have something that belonged to her instead of belonging to all of the people who had to know every single part of her life.

She wasn’t always a good liar, but she was good with lying. So good, in fact, that she sometimes lied to herself by pure force of will. So when she told Xander it would be fine, when she told herself that some hand holding amongst friends was no big, she really thought that she meant it.

(And it shouldn’t have been big. Buffy was all about touching in a friendly way. She and Willow would cuddle while watching movies; she would hip-check Faith after a productive night out; she would sling an arm around Oz or Cordelia in congratulations when they did something particularly useful. It was all basic friendship stuff, so it should have been fine.)

Now it had been a few months, and she was starting to suspect that she had gotten too used to the hand holding. All of the physical intimacy, innocent though it had been, had led to emotional intimacy. Now she couldn’t even sit next to him on a bench without thinking that she wanted to be touching him all the time, and that maybe she wanted him to be the only person she touched all the time.

It was a pretty shitty realization, all things considered.

(“I feel terrible,” Willow said suddenly.

Buffy looked at Willow, looked at the Wendy’s menu, looked at Willow again. “We can go somewhere else, if you want.”

“No, not about the food. I just realized that I’ve been going on and on about everything going on with Oz, and I never ask you about how you’re doing about the breakup with Angel. I’m a terrible friend.”

“Of course you’re not,” Buffy said, and she meant it. She was doing okay without Angel. It sucked sometimes, sure, but all she had to do to get a hug was spread her arms wide and bellow “hit me,” and Xander would lay one on her. It helped, in a weird way. “I’m doing okay, really.”

Willow gave her an evaluating once-over, and believed her.

That was nice. Sometimes Buffy had trouble knowing if she was okay or not.)

“Are you and Xander a thing?”

The question was posed with the classic Cordelia brazenness, but it had none of the bite that Buffy would have expected. Certainly none of the bite Buffy would have given if the tables turned.

But Buffy didn’t really have time for this: she needed to high-tail it to the band room to find a potentially cursed trombone that was maybe being used to lure girls away from the football stands and into the woods.

Where they were possibly being sexually assaulted.

That’s what she thought, anyway. She was thirty percent sure, but it was better than Xander’s theory that girls in the school had a secret liking for band geeks.

(Did Buffy have a thing for idiots? Was that her type? Jesus Christ.)

When Buffy made a noncommittal sound and walked away, Cordelia followed. “Buffy, come on. I’d be the last person to judge you; I’d be the last person with the right to. He has the weirdest loser appeal. If you know, you know—”

“We aren’t going out,” Buffy said. “Now, really, I have places to be and people to see.”

“He’s all over you.”

“It’s all friendly-like.”

“I see how you look at him.” This was where Cordelia’s voice went a little funny, a little soft, a little sad. “I won’t get mad if you date him. Greener pastures, and all that.”

“I didn’t know you were seeing somebody,” Buffy said, interested in spite of herself. She’d missed that part of Cordelia being around: the girl talk.

(She did miss Cordelia, a little. She missed talking about clothes and hair troubles and figuring out what she could do to her nails that wouldn’t be ruined when she punched someone in the face. She missed talking about boys with someone who had played the field a little—no offense, Willow. She’d learned to like Cordelia, and a small part of her was loving this conversation, even if it was uncomfy as fuck.)

Cordelia blinked, surprised. It should have been impossible to assume that you were smarter than everybody while assuming that everybody was always on the same page as you, but Cordy made it work. “I’m not. I’m talking about greener pastures for _you._ It’s about time you started seeing someone who could be there for you instead of waiting on the sidelines.”

Buffy waited for the punchline, for the subtle jab, for the backhanded part of the compliment. It didn’t come.

“Thanks,” Buffy finally said. They were coming up on the band room, and she really didn’t need Cordelia being there to witness the unfortunate victory or the embarrassing failure. “Xander and I aren’t a thing, though—he’s too busy noticing everyone else. The flavor of the week is Anya.”

Cordelia considered that, and God, she was pretty. Anya was too. So was Buffy, but ugh, it sucked to look at the competition and know they deserved the position.

“Anya would get into something casual with him, maybe,” Cordelia decided. “But if Xander thought he stood a chance with you, he’d pass it up.”

Maybe Cordelia could read the look on Buffy’s face: the one that said, _he didn’t pass up on the physical with Willow while he was with you._ The one that said, _gee, kind of a tall order for a boy with no impulse control._

Cordelia must have been able to pick up on some of that, really, because she rolled her eyes. “Xander likes women who’re stronger than him. You’re the strongest girl in the ring these days, and he knows it.”

Buffy thought about that, later, when she and Xander were throwing the trombone at stuff to break it. She thought about it when she accidentally broke a locker instead, and he laughed so hard he snorted. She thought about it when Xander walked her home, saying that he felt safer walking at night when he had a Slayer for protection.

After all, he didn’t live near her house. If he was walking her home, it wasn’t for pragmatic reasons.

(“You got me Beaches,” Buffy whispered, reverant. She held the tape close to her chest, not bothering to rip the rest of the wrapping paper off. “Ohmygod, you got me Beaches.”

Xander, holding the skateboard stickers she’d gotten him for Christmas, looked pained. “I did. I already regret it.”

“You must love me a lot, because we’re going to be watching this every single day for the rest of vacation.”

“That’s the only explanation.” After a beat, he dropped the stickers on the ground and looked her in the eye. “Actually, it’s not just that. The present doubles as an apology.”

“For what?”

“I was a real dick about the whole Angel thing. I’m not over his whole murdering-and-torturing-schtick, and I took it out on you. That wasn’t cool, and I’m sorry.”

If Buffy hadn’t already been sitting perpendicular to him on the couch, legs slung over his, she would have hugged him. As it was, she gave him a smile so dazzling he didn’t try to stop her from tousling his hair. He watched the movie with her three times during the holiday break, and he did not complain once. He laughed at her when she cried, but he did not complain.)

There was something wrong, something horribly wrong. Buffy was familiar with the feeling of time passing her by; it was what she felt every time she watched her classmates make plans for a future she did not expect to see. The world moved on, and she was stuck in place.

This was not that feeling.

The horrible, wrenching anxiety that Buffy was feeling was not so much from time passing her by as it was losing time. Buffy was horribly certain, in this moment, that she was going to forget this in the next moment. Time was slipping through her fingers like sand, and she was dealing with it by herself.

Why was she by herself? Why was nobody here to help her?

She was not sure why Xander was the person she called. If something hinky was going on, she should call Giles—not Wesley, never Wesley. If her life was in shambles, Willow would want to help her pick up the pieces. A kid should always be able to lean on a parent, so shouldn’t Buffy be walking downstairs to find Joyce?

Yes, to all of the above.

Buffy called Xander, and he picked up on the second ring.

“I’ve been expecting your call,” he intoned, put-on voice all low and slow.

“Xander?” Buffy was holding the phone in both hands. It felt like a childish pose, but that was sort of how she was feeling. Young and afraid, and ready to cling to anyone who would have her. “Xander, I think something is wrong.”

“Yeah, kid, I know.”

“Is it happening to you too?”

The phone crackled a little bit when he exhaled. “Nah. There was some witchy business today, and you took a direct hit. Giles said that it’s no biggie—he said that you’ll be forgetting in-the-moment things for a while, but it’ll wear off soon and you’ll be good as new.”

Nononononononononono.

“No,” she said, voice barely any steadier than her inner monologue. “No, I can’t be good as new if I’m forgetting things. Will I get the memories back?”

Quiet.

“Xander?”

“He doesn’t think so. But what does Giles know? Nothing, practically. For all we know, we’ll be laughing about these conversations in the morning.”

Buffy frowned. “Conversations?”

“Yeah.” She could almost see him fidgeting with the sleeves of his shirt. “You’ve been calling me over and over again since you got home, Buff.”

“Oh my god.”

“Don’t worry about it—that’s what friends are for. Just so happens that I’m the friend coming to your rescue this time. At this rate, I’ll be repaying all of my life debts to you in one night.”

Buffy leaned forward, resting her forehead against the wall. It was cool and comforting, like leaning her head against the sink when she had the flu. That’s all this was: a sickness. She didn’t feel good. There was something wrong with her chest; what was that? She thought she might be dying, and it felt like she was missing something—

“Buffy? You still there?”

“Xander,” she said, suddenly afraid. How did she get here? “Xander, I think something is wrong.”

“Nothing’s wrong,” he said gently.

“I think I might be dying.”

“No faster than—well, maybe that’s not true. Guess I can’t say ‘no faster than the rest of us’ to somebody who fights on the front lines every day.”

Buffy’s heart was like a freight train. It hurt. “I need help.”

“It’s a spell, Buff. Giles said you’ll be better in the morning, but you won’t remember any of this.”

Maybe she should write this down. Maybe she should give herself something to help her memory along, just until this stopped. A note about forgetting, maybe, or—an anchor. That’s what she needed. She needed something to remember. She needed something heavy to hold her in place, something worth knowing. 

“Xander,” she said. Time was slipping, but his name was steady in her mind and in her mouth. “Xander, could you ever love me?”

He huffed out a laugh, and she wondered if she had asked him this before. If she had, none of this mattered. She’d had all of these thoughts before, and odds were she’d have them again. “Ask me again tomorrow, Buffy. Promise I’ll answer.”

“Sure. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, I guess.”

“Hold on,” he said. “Why don’t we stay on the phone? I can wait with you until you’re feeling okay again. Or I could come over—”

“No need. If it’s a waiting game, I can play it alone.” Really, Buffy didn’t like the idea of Xander watching her flounder over and over again. She didn’t like the idea of him remembering a bunch of stuff about her that she had no access to. “Bye.”

She hung up the phone, and it was not right.

The world was too quiet without Xander around.

The world was very quiet. Buffy wasn’t used to quiet; her life was full of noise by virtue of all of the undead in it, and the rest of the time she actively pursued liveliness and vivacity. She usually succeeded, too, so why was she home alone right now? Why wasn’t she slaying, or hanging out with friends, or doing literally anything other than what she was right now?

Maybe she was sick. There was the strangest feeling in her chest, like panic and fear and grief. It was like loss, sort of, like she was living in the seconds after finding out that somebody dear had died. It was like she was on one of those waterslides where the floor drops out from under you, but instead of hitting the slide, she was stuck in that first fall.

She was losing something—time, maybe. She was forgetting something, maybe everything. She needed help.

She called Xander.

(She was paging through some Watcher’s diary, half-hearted and with no mind at all, when Xander walked into the library. She looked up too fast and he grinned, flicking her a quick wave before going to argue with Giles that _no, book duty is too boring for a day like this; can’t we do some practical research instead? We haven’t patrolled ice cream shops for suspicious activity in ages._ For a split second, she was terrified that he’d take a good look at her and it would be so painfully obvious. She liked him, and he would know it, and wasn’t that just a hundred thousand circles of Hell all rolled into one?

There was no hiss when he smiled; no hesitation in his step; no moment where his eyes lingered a little too long. He didn’t know.

Wasn’t that just a hundred thousand circles of Hell all rolled into one?)

Let’s set the scene: the Scoobies were in the library with the rest of their English class, choosing poets to write a paper about. They weren’t talking to Giles, weren’t looking up demons, weren’t thinking about the fact that any number of them could die tonight. Xander was whispering complaints about T. S. Eliot, Willow was acting like it didn’t hurt to hear him bash her favorite poet, and Buffy was wondering how many pieces of symbolism she could make up before it became obvious that she had not read any of the poems all the way through.

There are two relevant facts, here: the first is that Buffy was a full time Slayer. Sure, she talked about makeup and Leonardo DiCaprio more when vamps weren’t around; but even sitting in class, even eating french fries at the Bronze, even asking Willow’s opinion about nail polish, she was a superhuman monster killing machine.

The second is that when a bunch of teenagers are in a library, at least one person is bound to drop something heavy in a shocking and distracting way.

And there was this strange second, right when the book hit the floor, when Buffy’s brain completely blanked. The blackout itself wasn’t strange; her instincts were good enough to act even when her brain couldn’t. So, no, going on the fritz when she was surprised wasn’t strange. It was that when the second ended, she didn’t have a cross or a stake in her hand.

Harmony sheepishly picked up the book, mumbling something about an accident into the silence that filled the library, and slowly people started talking again.

Buffy, who did not have a weapon in hand, looked down at what she had instinctively grabbed when she thought there was danger. Xander’s hand was soft in hers, a little white where her fingers were digging in.

“A little tight, Buff,” he said. His gaze had flicked up to look at Harmony, but he was looking at his book again. He squeezed her hand, a hint of a smile on his face, and then looked back at her. “Buffy?”

She blinked at him once, then at his hand, and she let go. “It’s nothing—I was just surprised.”

“I’m scared of books too,” he said, and his lips twitched up. “I’ve lost more blood to paper cuts than to any vam—to any of the very manly fistfights I’ve had.”

A minute later, Xander grabbed her hand again. When she froze, he shrugged.

“It was a little tight before. I didn’t say it was bad.”

That was a whirlwind of emotions, but when she came out of it, it occurred to Buffy that she had never really talked to Willow about this. She looked at Willow, ready to yank her hand away from Xander, ready to grovel, ready to defend herself, but—

But Willow was pointedly reading, a hint of a smile on her face. She didn’t look surprised at all. Maybe nobody was; maybe Buffy herself was the only person who hadn’t seen any of this coming.

The curtain closes, and Buffy cannot tell if this is the rising or the falling action.

(WANTED: LOCAL TEEN’S MISSING DIGNITY

LAST SEEN: RIGHT BEFORE SHE WATCHED HER CRUSH ROLL UP HIS SHIRT SLEEVES, EXPOSING FOREARMS SEXY ENOUGH THAT SHE DOODLED “BUFFY HARRIS” IN HER ENGLISH NOTEBOOK)

“Buffy,” she whispered, “you’re hot shit, and he knows it. You both know that he would be lucky to have you, so he’ll have you,”

Buffy’d read some paper once, probably for a class, that said that positive thinking led to positive feeling. Or something like that—she wasn’t known for close readings. Anyway, what she took away from the paper was that if she expected the best and acted as her own hype-woman, things were more likely to work out the way she wanted them to.

“Buffy, you’re a catch. Whatever happens today, you’ve got a bright future and great friends and great hair. Prom is, like, a blip. It’s only as important as you make it.”

She looked cute today. She had a bouquet of flowers, which was about as romantic as it could get, and she had a flimsy hope that Xander had feelings for her, even after everything.

“You can do this,” she said, a little too loud, maybe.

Definitely too loud. She’d been coming up on Xander, and he heard her. Shit.

“Do what?” He looked happy to see her, even if he was a little confused. That was a good sign.

“Oh, you know,” she said, giving a false laugh. “Take leaps of faith.”

The confusion turned to interest. “Where are we leaping? It is we, right? You aren’t leaping anywhere without backup.”

Buffy grinned at him, and his face mirrored hers, and God, she was hopeful. She sometimes forgot that she was capable of hoping like this. She was capable of hoping and loving and having a happy ending, and Xander might want to be there for all of it. He might want to be the cause of it.

“Whatcha got there?” Xander was looking at the floor—Buffy followed suit, and saw that she had been squeezing the flowers too tight. They were behind her back, theoretically perfect for whipping out when she asked him to prom, but she’d been overzealous about the holding. Stems had broken, and bits of plant had drifted to the ground.

This wasn’t anywhere near the romantic picture Buffy had tried to set up, but she pulled the bouquet out anyways. “Flowers.”

Something in his face shut down, even as he smiled. “Someone asked you to prom. Who was it? Someone human, I hope—I’ve always wanted to do the “if you hurt her, I’ll hurt you” thing. Hard to say that to vampires and werewolves, but an Average Joe, maybe. If he doesn’t play sports. But you like sporty guys—is he a baseball player? I might be able to take a baseball player.”

“Nobody asked me to prom.” Buffy held the flowers out a little farther; she wasn’t forcing him to take them so much as she was offering. “I figured, what the hell, I can do the asking.”

Xander looked at the crushed flowers, then up at her. “Very progressive. I like it. Who's the lucky guy?”

God, he was so stupid. God, she liked his face. “You, actually. Do you want to go to prom with me?”

His mouth opened, shut—when it opened again, she could already tell that his brain and mouth had disconnected. Whatever happened next would be nonsense, and there was no stopping him now. “I don’t play sports.”

“No,” she agreed.

“I can’t beat me up if I hurt you.”

“No, but I can beat you up if you hurt me, so it should all work out. But that’s not an answer: prom?”

He was still looking at the flowers, like the card might say something to make it all make sense. 

(It didn’t. The card just said “Please?”, and she was starting to wish she’d written something better. It was just, that was all she had been thinking for weeks now. She wasn’t much for praying, but she had prayed for this. Her heart had been a constant stream of _please, please, please. Please say yes. Please tell me that I’m not too late. Please tell me that we haven’t been through too much, that I’m not too much for you, that you could put up with the Slayer thing for a lifetime or two. Please, Xander, say yes._ )

His face cleared, and her heart lifted. “As friends, you mean. Neither of us have dates, so we might as well go together. Sure—but you did the asking, so you have to buy me dinner.”

Buffy gaped at him—she’d gotten him flowers. Was he seriously not getting it?

Maybe Buffy was also an idiot, because her mouth said the wrong words.

It was supposed to say: Not exactly. We are friends, and we always will be, but I want to go out as more-than-friends. And I’ll buy you dinner, but you have to kiss me at the end of the night.

What it actually said: Sounds like a plan, Stan.

Xander looked happy-unhappy, Buffy was fully unhappy, and she was going to have to punch something later to take the edge off.

(She could live like this, she thought; she could handle watching the way his mouth quirked when he made snarky remarks, the way his t-shirts pulled taut over his shoulders when it was too hot for multiple layers, the way his fingers moved while he twirled pencils. 

She had to live like this. Loving him hurt, but losing him would be so much worse. She genuinely could not even imagine it.)

“You don’t have to stay with me,” Buffy said. It would have been more convincing if she hadn’t eaten three-quarters of the snacks he brought, maybe, but she meant it. Xander was looking dapper as fuck in his tux, and who was she to ask him to waste it on hellhounds and dangerously lonely boys?

He’d been getting antsy for a while, fiddling with a candy wrapper, with his tie, with the trigger of a crossbow. When she made the suggestion, though, he looked almost hurt. “Where else would I go? My date is here, so I’m here.”

“You’re my date to a _dance._ ” She gave a pointed look to their surroundings—trees instead of streamers and balloons, Hostess pastries instead of chocolate covered strawberries, knives instead of corsages. Definitely not the same thing.

“And I assure you, when we kick ass, I’ll be the first to whip out my touchdown dance.” Xander did something that probably didn’t qualify as dancing—something that involved wiggling hips and arm spasms—but absolutely made Buffy laugh, and maybe that was the point.

“I’m serious,” she said, still grinning. And she was. None of this had gone according to plan, so this wasn’t a real date. If Xander left, he wasn’t missing out on jittery couples photos or anxious kisses or charged slow dances. Without all of that, what did she have to keep him here? Nothing.

“Do you want me to leave?”

“Never.” It was an immediate, visceral answer. The force of it surprised Buffy, flustered Xander, and made her wish that something evil would swallow her whole. Still, she powered through. “I always want you around.”

“Guess I don’t need to train hellhounds to attack people in finery, then.” Xander started to fiddle again, but there was a development: he cautiously took a hunk of her hair and started to braid it.

Xander had braided her hair before.

But never after Buffy said she always wanted him.

“A million years ago,” Xander murmured, “when you asked me to prom, you made it sound like you were asking me because nobody had asked you. Who were you hoping for?”

Oh, God. Was this the moment? She suddenly didn’t want it to be. Months of pining, potentially at an end, for better or for worse, and Buffy was hit by a frantic desire to stretch out the anticipation for a while longer. She wanted to live in the moments where she could want him without knowing that he had moved on.

“Marty McFly,” she said. “As a kid I always pictured him letting me ride double on his skateboard. He’s too old for me, though, so you’ll do.”

“Buffy.”

“I know, the puffy vest is so out. But I like vintage.”

“If you were hoping Angel would show up, you can tell me. I won’t get mad.” He didn’t sound mad. Unhappy, sure, but there had been an undercurrent of that since he told her they were going as friends.

“I wasn’t hoping Angel would show up,” Buffy said, surprised. Really? After all this time, Xander still thought that she was holding out for Angel? “Why would I ask you if I wanted Angel? Do you really think so little of me?”

Xander, confused as ever, tried to backtrack, but it was too late. All of the anxiety and dying hope mingled, and there was a chemical reaction, all right: Buffy was stricken by a rare bout of self-hatred.

“What did you think the past six months were? Here I was, trying to woo you by holding hands and going on walks and asking you out on a date—am I really that stupid? Was I misunderstanding all of it?”

“Hold on—you never asked me out on a date—”

“I bought you flowers,” she hissed. She threw the oatmeal cream pie she’d been picking at, now horribly mangled, to the ground. “I bought you flowers and asked you to prom, and you turned me down. Goddamn it, I’m so stupid.”

“Oh my God,” Xander said, mystified. 

“I’m sorry, Xander, I’m not angry at you. I’m angry at myself.”

“You like me,” he accused, starting to smile.

“Yeah, no shit.” Buffy ran a hand through her hair; even now, embarrassed and a little crushed, she took care not to mess up the little braid.

“No, I mean, you like me, and you want to date me.”

“I’ll back off, don’t worry.”

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Xander said, overjoyed, and kissed her.

Buffy made a mental note to send flowers to Cordelia, because Xander knew how to kiss. Buffy had kissed plenty of guys who didn’t bother learning what she liked, but Xander was all over it. He was quick to find where she wanted his hands, where he could suck to make her weak in the knees, where using his teeth would make her stop breathing.

“I didn’t want to mess this up,” he mumbled against the skin of her neck. Every kiss was a balm, healing every wound she had inflicted upon herself in the past few months. “I didn’t want to assume after we fought last time—didn’t want to misunderstand—”

“I think I’m in love with you,” Buffy said, and somehow that made it better. Because Xander looked happy and at ease and eighteen. Because fighting demons at the dance was no big deal when she had this kind of happiness waiting for her, because she was the Class Protector, because the world was so much louder, so much brighter, when he was nearby.

(“You can back out,” she told him after the dance, sitting on a bench outside the school. His thigh pressed against hers, and his shoulder acted as a resting place for her cheek. “If you have second thoughts, I won’t stake you.”

“Nuh uh, Slayer. I spent an entire night telling you that I love you over the phone. You’re going to be saying it back at least that many times.”

Buffy had no idea what he was talking about, but that was okay. She told him that she loved him, and it lessened the deficit by one.)

**Author's Note:**

> Can you believe that I'll just post anything that takes longer than two days to write?? Because I will, and that's a threat.


End file.
